Where do Your Property Taxes Go? City of San Antonio

There's a lot going on at the City of San Antonio so I'm going to break it down into smaller pieces.

Just a reminder, everything printed in bold, orange lettering is a link, just click on it.

A recap of the 2010 property tax bill of $5,029.23 for a $189,930 house.

$58.27 goes to Bexar County Road Maintenance and Flood Control
$30.30 goes to San Antonio River Authority
$258.03 goes to Alamo Community College District (NW Vista, SAC, St. Phillips, etc)
$505.66 goes to the University Health System (University Hospital)
$552.65 goes to Bexar County
$1,074.42 goes to the City of San Antonio
$2,540.31 goes to the School District you are in (In this case Northside ISD)


So $1,074.42 of your property taxes goes to the City of San Antonio.

The City of San Antonio receives revenues from several sources: Property taxes (25%), Charges and fees (20%), Revenues from Utilities (17%), Grants (usually federal) (15%), Sales Tax (14%), Hotel/Motel Tax (4%), Other Taxes (Short Term Rental Tax, Bingo Tax, etc) (2%), Fines (Library Fines, Traffic Tickets) (1%), Miscellaneous (1%), Intergovernment (0.6%), Permits/Licenses (0.4%)


The 2010 Budget for the City divides general fund expenditures in the following ways: Police (36%), Fire/EMS (26%), other services (Aviation, Community Initiatives, Historic Preservation, Solid Waste Management, Military Affairs, etc) (11%), Convention, Tourism and Culture (9%), Streets and Infrastructure (7%), Environmental (5%), Parks & Recreation (6%), Agencies (4%), Library (3%), Health (1%), Municipal Courts (1%), Neighborhood Services (1%), Economic Development (0.5%), Animal Care (0.5%), .  I will take you through each of these items in separate posts.  If you feel that you have a better way to spend the money you can post your suggestions on the online Budget suggestion box for the 2011 budget.

The largest slice of the City's budget goes to Public Safety, the Fire Department and EMS, the Office of Emergency Management and the Police Department.  These departments have large staffs, many stations and building facilities and large fleets of police cars, fire trucks and ambulances.  When the first governments were formed way back in the caveman days, it was the responsibility of the headman to protect his community and that is still the primary responsibility of governments today.